Many containers are provided with tamper-resistant devices to resist refilling of contents in the containers. For example, a beverage container can include a fitment that renders the container non-refillable, so as to impede efforts to refill the container with inferior products. U.S. Pat. No. 3,399,811 illustrates a container of this type.
A general object of the present disclosure, in accordance with one aspect of the disclosure, is to provide a product including a container and a use indicator carried by the container that indicates whether the container has been used and, thus, will provide evidence of efforts to repackage the container with counterfeit product.
The present disclosure embodies a number of aspects that can be implemented separately from or in combination with each other.
A package in accordance with one aspect of the disclosure includes a container having an open end, a closure closing the open end of the container, and a sensor carried by at least one of the container or the closure to detect at least one of pressure in the container or weight of product in the container.
In accordance with a further aspect of the disclosure, there is provided a product that includes a container, and an indicator carried by the container, and responsive to a change in at least one state of the container to irreversibly modify a visual characteristic visible from outside the container.
In accordance with another aspect of the disclosure, there is provided a method of producing a package that includes (a) coupling at least a portion of an indicator to a container, wherein the indicator includes a sensor and a display; (b) filling the container with an original flop/able product; and (c) closing the container with a closure. After at least one of the filling or closing steps, the display exhibits an initial state of a visual characteristic of a plurality of states of the visual characteristic.